Keep your fingers crossed!

Winter weather is tricky, especially in places that are unprepared for it.

A few inches of snow fell on Brussels Thursday night (2 days ago), and the flights in and out of the international airport are still being delayed and canceled!

Alberto is supposed to meet me in Brussels today, but some snow fell on Milan last night, so we are just hoping his flight makes it here today.  Unfortunately, RyanAir gives shitty information on their website, as does the po-dunk airport that serves that company. You really just have to show up at the airport and hope for the best with them.

Keep your fingers crossed that no more snow falls on these winter unprepared cities, that Alberto arrives in Brussels in time for our flight to Minnesota on Monday, and that the delays and cancelations in Brussels are over by that time!

We are looking forward to Christmas at home (my home) this year. It's been 3 years since I last experienced a Minnesota winter, and Alberto is a bit frightened by the thought of negative degree (Fahrenheit) weather. We had to get new winter jackets, socks, hats, scarves, etc. I still don't have a warm pair of shoes... how easily one forgets what frozen toes feel like!

We'll be home soon as long as the weather holds up over here. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

We're looking forward to seeing everybody!

I'm a little behind

In the middle of my "I hate October" hissyfit, I complained to Alberto about the fact that we never do anything cool anymore. That's far from the truth, but when you are in a long distance relationship your money tends to go toward plane tickets, and your organizational skills go to figuring out how to swing two days out of the office so you can see your boyfriend/girlfriend for more than 2 days at a time without falling behind on your work-related responsibilities. Needless to say, a weekend trip to Paris, London, Amsterdam or Rome seems hard to commit to both financially and organizationally at times. 

So, when I whined that we never do anything cool anymore, Alberto suggested Maastricht.

Situated on the Southern point of Holland, Maastricht is wedged right in between Belgium and Germany. I booked us a B&B for one night, and we planned a 24 hour trip for the last weekend in October, when Alberto would be visiting me in Brussels anyway.

It took us less than 2 hours to get there by train from Brussels, and with the 50% discounted weekend fares that Belgium offers, it only cost us something lik 25 Euros roundtrip per person. Not bad...

This is the B&B where we stayed. The ownder didn't speak much English. I had reserved the room online and he sent the directions to find it in Dutch. Thank God for online translators, and my Flemish speaking colleague!

These are shots from in the room. The red heart-shaped pillows are bit kitch, but all in all, it was a nice place. Oh, and the breakfast was awesome!

One thing that really made me happy was the fall weather that we had the day we were there. It was absolutely gorgeous. I stopped complaining immediately about how much I hate fall in Europe.

This statue had a real flame. I'm not sure what that was all about... I should have read the guidebook more thoroughly.

 

Horses!

  The city center was entirely pedestrian and was full of sidewalk cafes and window shoppers. 

But despite all of the cafes, a decent espresso was nowhere to be found, hence Alberto's annoyed face here.

There were all sorts of interesting statues in Maastricht. Exhibit 1.

...and Exhibit 2.

In the evening we found lots of charming little cobbled streets to explore. 

And what would a city in Holland be without a sea of bikes parked at the train station?

We had a great time in Maastricht. Both Alberto and I found the city to be utterly romantic. It had a somewhat posh vibe to it, without making us feel at all out of place. Everything about the city was charming, even the "coffee shop" (it was Holland, after all) seemed high class. Our only gripe was that we went out looking for dinner at 9pm, and almost every restaurant told us they were done serving already. Ooops, we forgot we were in Northern Europe. We ended up at a great Chinese place, and got drunk on Chinese beer, like the classy folk we are.

I just wish I had more pictures. I didn't even take a single picture of the Maes, the river that divides the city center in half! At least I have an excuse to go back...

Good press for good places

I'm always happy when I see good publicity brought to some of the places with which I feel a connection.

The first made me proud:

Minneapolis - St. Paul was named #1 in the US in a ranking of the city with the smartest people in the country!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34017699/ns/travel-destinations/

I always knew we were smart. I've traveled a lot, and I can confirm, nothing beats the brains of Minneapolis. Ok, so maybe I'm biased, but Minneapolis is full of great cultural events, and the people, unlike in many places, are intelligent while also being very down to earth (i.e. none of the snobbery or pretentiousness that people from other "intelligent" cities often exude).

The second good publicity is for Sardegna, of course!

The book Blue Zones is getting a lot of press lately. It identifies specific ares of the world that have a high proportion of healthy people who live to be at least 100. Some villages in Sardenga make up one of the studied blue zones and, among lots of other healthy lifestyle habits, credit for the longevity is being partially given to Cannonau, a popular Sardinian wine.

Cannonau is said to contain 2-3 times more antioxidants than other red wines.

The Blue Zones website: http://www.bluezones.com says that the key to red wine consumption is consistency (I can handle that) and moderation (hmmm...).

This wine has been a favorite of mine since my Sardinian friend Giorgio introduced me to it about 4 years ago, and now I have a good reason to keep drinking it! The two bottles above are my favorites.

I see an importation business about to boom. I'm sure all of those smart Minnesota yuppies will definitely want to get their hands on some Cannonau soon.